was supplied by the finer, subtler
quality of Annie's. From that first day I could never disguise from myself
that they seemed, so far as mere physical life goes, the absolute
counterparts of each other.

I need not dwell on this part of my story. When young hearts are drawing
together, summer days speed on very swiftly. George Ware, alas! was kept
at the West week after week, until it came to be month after month. My
uncle and aunt seemed deliberately to shut their eyes to the drift of
events. I think they were so thankful to watch Annie's bounding health and
happiness, to hear glad voices and merry laughs echoing all day in their
house, that they could not allow themselves to ask whether a new kernel of
bitterness, of danger, lay at the core of all this fair seeming. As for
the children, they did not know that they were loving each other as man
and woman. Edward Neal was only twenty-one, Annie but nineteen, and both
were singularly young and innocent of soul.

And so it came to be once more the early autumn; the maple leaves were
beginning to be red, and my chrysanthemums had again set their tiny round
disks of buds. Edward, and Annie had said no word of love to each other,
but the whole town looked on them as lovers, and people began to reply
impatiently and incredulously to our assurances that no engagement
existed.

Early in October George came home, very unexpectedly, taking even his
mother by surprise. He told me afterwards that he came at last as one
warned of God. A presentiment of evil, against which he had struggled for
weeks, finally so overwhelmed him that he set off for home without half an
hour's delay. I found him, on the night after his arrival, sitting in his
old place in the big arm-chair at the head of Annie's lounge; she still
clung to some of her old invalid ways, and spent many evenings curled up
like a half-shut pink rose on the green damask cushions. He looked worn
and thin, but glad and eager, and was giving a lively account of his
Western experiences when the library door opened, and coming in
unannounced, with the freedom of one at home, Edward Neal entered.

"O Edward, here is Cousin George," exclaimed Annie, while a wave of rosy
color spread over her face, and half rising, she took George's hand in
hers as she leaned towards Edward.

"Oh, I'm so glad to see you, Mr. Ware," said Edward, with that indefinable
tone of gentle respect which marks a very young man's recognition of one
much o